The future of artificial intelligence

Published: Saturday, August 16, 2014 at 05:02 PM.

By 2025, artificial intelligence and robotics will leave most of us unemployed — or not — according to a survey of experts detailed in the third report from Elon University and Pew Research.

Elon’s Imagining the Internet Center sent an eight-question survey to nearly 1,900 experts on the Internet between January 2013 and last January. This is the fourth of a series of eight reports, called Digital Life in 2025, written from that survey.

One question was, “Will automation from artificial intelligence and robotics take more jobs than it creates by 2025?”

While most of those experts agreed that robots and artificial intelligence would be a big part of daily life in 11 years, many disagreed strongly about the impact on jobs.

Forty-eight percent of these respondents said automation would put many blue- and white-collar workers out of work, leaving many basically unemployable. Many said this would increase the divide between rich and poor, erode the middle class and lead to social strife.

On the other side, 52 percent said in the future, artificial intelligence and robots would do a lot of jobs people do now, but people would adapt, creating new industries and jobs, and making a living, as they have done since the Industrial Revolution.

By 2025, artificial intelligence and robotics will leave most of us unemployed — or not — according to a survey of experts detailed in the third report from Elon University and Pew Research.

Elon’s Imagining the Internet Center sent an eight-question survey to nearly 1,900 experts on the Internet between January 2013 and last January. This is the fourth of a series of eight reports, called Digital Life in 2025, written from that survey.

One question was, “Will automation from artificial intelligence and robotics take more jobs than it creates by 2025?”

While most of those experts agreed that robots and artificial intelligence would be a big part of daily life in 11 years, many disagreed strongly about the impact on jobs.

Forty-eight percent of these respondents said automation would put many blue- and white-collar workers out of work, leaving many basically unemployable. Many said this would increase the divide between rich and poor, erode the middle class and lead to social strife.

On the other side, 52 percent said in the future, artificial intelligence and robots would do a lot of jobs people do now, but people would adapt, creating new industries and jobs, and making a living, as they have done since the Industrial Revolution.

MANY SAID OUR education system was not preparing people for the jobs that will be available in the future — whatever they are. Others said these potential changes could be a chance to change how people see work, focusing on small-scale and artisan production. Others said it could give people a chance to focus on leisure, self-improvement and time with family and friends.

Among the optimists, many said the effect of new automation on employment could be a wash, costing many jobs, but creating more for those who are prepared. J.P Rangaswami, chief scientist for Salesforce.com, wrote that the nature of work would change, “but only in economies that have chosen to invest in education, technology and related infrastructure.”

For some jobs, robots would be a poor substitute, he wrote.

Among the arguments for the optimistic view is that technology historically has created jobs, not destroyed them.

“Someone has to make and service all these advanced devices,” wrote Vint Cerf, who has the title of vice president and “chief Internet evangelist” at Google.

Some of the pessimists point out automation is already putting people out of work and will put more out.

“Automation is Voldemort: the terrifying force nobody is willing to name,” wrote Jerry Michalski, founder of the Relationship Economy eXpedition. “We hardly dwell on the fact that someone trying to pick a career path that is not likely to be automated will have a very hard time making that choice.”

THERE ARE, ANOTHER argument goes, some jobs that only people can do, especially work that needs creative thinking and problem-solving.

“Advances in AI and robotics allow people to cognitively offload repetitive tasks and invest their attention and energy in things where humans can make a difference,” wrote Pamela Rutledge, director of the Media Psychology Research Center.

Among the “optimists” are those who don’t think technology will advance enough to put masses of people out of work — at least not by 2025.

“There is no doubt that these technologies affect the types of jobs that need to be done. But there are only 12 years to 2025, some of these technologies will take a long time to deploy in significant scale,” wrote Jari Arkko, Internet expert for Ericsson and chair of the Internet Engineering Task Force.